Summary In this article, Jennifer Smith discusses how after years of having her high school students design and perform inquiry activities with varying success she finally developed the formula for helping her students have truly successful self-designed inquiries. She states that while many of her students could recite the details of the scientific method, many didn’t truly understand it, having the most trouble identifying proper controlled, independent, and dependent variables. While Ms. Smith teaches high school chemistry, her design would work well for any middle or high school level science inquiry.
Smith states that setting up a rubric and inquiry guidelines describing the task, background information, restrictions and instructions to give to her students prior to beginning the activity she could help them better understand the different variables and all the detail required, while structuring it so that the students worked with only one independent variable. She found that discussing and deciding on variables to test as a class helped the students each choose one to test in their own inquiry. The students designed everything from the procedure to materials needed to proper safety precautions with Smith only stepping in to have them correct gross errors. The biggest challenge she encountered as the teacher was stepping back and giving students only what they listed in their materials list and general safety guidelines, allowing them to realize on their own if anything was impractical or unreasonable. Allowing three days for the activity was important as well, giving students enough time to brainstorm and design the inquiry one day, one day to complete the task, and one last day to analyze and organize data and formulate conclusions. Smith states that by following this design, her “students were not only engaged, but personally involved in their work” (p. 54) and they “gained self-confidence in the laboratory and in their ability to participate in scientific inquiry”(p. 54).
Reflection
I was excited to find this article and really enjoyed reading about Smith's discovery of a way to have students complete their first inquiry successfully. I especially appreciated her section on Teacher's Challenges where she discussed how hard it was to only correct the gross errors and give the students only general directions, safety guidelines, and only the materials they requested, but that in the end the students get it accomplished on their own. I found her inclusion of the specific directions, rubric, and student work and reflections helpful as well because I think that I could use the same general concept on any number of inquiry activities. The idea of setting up some limits to the inquiry activity before presenting it to the students to design is a great way to set them up for success while still allowing them the benefit of being in control of the process and self-satisfaction at troubleshooting their procedures on their own. I have been unsure of how to set up inquiry activities so that it is a true student inquiry where they have the ownership, while still having it structured enough so that they can truly learn from their success or failure at proving their hypothesis. I think especially for at least the first inquiry, providing the structure of limiting the students to one independent variable and choosing the possible variations as a class is a great scaffold that can be drawn back as their understanding of variables and scientific design grows and matures throughout the year.
Smith, J. (2010). Sugar Cube Science. The Science Teacher, 77(8), 50-54.
Summary
In this article, Jennifer Smith discusses how after years of having her high school students design and perform inquiry activities with varying success she finally developed the formula for helping her students have truly successful self-designed inquiries. She states that while many of her students could recite the details of the scientific method, many didn’t truly understand it, having the most trouble identifying proper controlled, independent, and dependent variables. While Ms. Smith teaches high school chemistry, her design would work well for any middle or high school level science inquiry.
Smith states that setting up a rubric and inquiry guidelines describing the task, background information, restrictions and instructions to give to her students prior to beginning the activity she could help them better understand the different variables and all the detail required, while structuring it so that the students worked with only one independent variable. She found that discussing and deciding on variables to test as a class helped the students each choose one to test in their own inquiry. The students designed everything from the procedure to materials needed to proper safety precautions with Smith only stepping in to have them correct gross errors. The biggest challenge she encountered as the teacher was stepping back and giving students only what they listed in their materials list and general safety guidelines, allowing them to realize on their own if anything was impractical or unreasonable. Allowing three days for the activity was important as well, giving students enough time to brainstorm and design the inquiry one day, one day to complete the task, and one last day to analyze and organize data and formulate conclusions. Smith states that by following this design, her “students were not only engaged, but personally involved in their work” (p. 54) and they “gained self-confidence in the laboratory and in their ability to participate in scientific inquiry”(p. 54).
Reflection
I was excited to find this article and really enjoyed reading about Smith's discovery of a way to have students complete their first inquiry successfully. I especially appreciated her section on Teacher's Challenges where she discussed how hard it was to only correct the gross errors and give the students only general directions, safety guidelines, and only the materials they requested, but that in the end the students get it accomplished on their own. I found her inclusion of the specific directions, rubric, and student work and reflections helpful as well because I think that I could use the same general concept on any number of inquiry activities. The idea of setting up some limits to the inquiry activity before presenting it to the students to design is a great way to set them up for success while still allowing them the benefit of being in control of the process and self-satisfaction at troubleshooting their procedures on their own. I have been unsure of how to set up inquiry activities so that it is a true student inquiry where they have the ownership, while still having it structured enough so that they can truly learn from their success or failure at proving their hypothesis. I think especially for at least the first inquiry, providing the structure of limiting the students to one independent variable and choosing the possible variations as a class is a great scaffold that can be drawn back as their understanding of variables and scientific design grows and matures throughout the year.